Advice on buying off Yahoo Auctions Japan

[Super Orbus]

Anybody have any experience doing it? Either straight up, or through a proxy service? Looking for tips.

[Joseph Joestar]

Dec 27, 2013 22:13:34 GMT -5 Super Orbus said:

Anybody have any experience doing it? Either straight up, or through a proxy service? Looking for tips.

There was a thread a while back, I'll see if I can find it.  Anyway, I've used Rinkya in the past, although they're horrifically expensive.  Good, fast service though, and their interface is alright.  I still ended up paying less than ebay prices, as well - unfortunately I haven't found many good deals there recently.

[Super Orbus]

Thanks. Looking at ordering an old Japanese movie poster. Occasionally some pop up on ebay, but there are more options on Yahoo Auctions. At the moment, neither actually has exactly what I want though.

[Joseph Joestar]

Dec 28, 2013 19:21:26 GMT -5 Super Orbus said:

Thanks. Looking at ordering an old Japanese movie poster. Occasionally some pop up on ebay, but there are more options on Yahoo Auctions. At the moment, neither actually has exactly what I want though.

Mind if I ask which one?  If you can get me an image/movie name I'll help with the search.

Also I'd forgotten that Tenso has Buyee now.  Apparently they're cheaper than Rinkya, as well, so I'm going to try them out and if it works out ok, I'll get my deposit back from Rinkya.  Kurt told me about Tenso in the first place - they can get pricy (they only ship EMS) but I've yet to have bad service from them.  They're super fast too.

[Super Orbus]

The 1995 Gamera movie. There are two posters. The one on the left is the release poster and is fairly plentiful. There's at least one on ebay now, and 3 or 4 on Yahoo Auctions. The one on the right is the pre-release poster and nobody has one for sale at the moment that I can find. I want the prerelease one, but I may settle for the normal one if one doesn't show up after a while.

I've only been looking since yesterday though. For all I know they could turn up on ebay often.

[Joseph Joestar]

Dec 28, 2013 21:06:16 GMT -5 Super Orbus said:

The 1995 Gamera movie. There are two posters. The one on the left is the release poster and is fairly plentiful. There's at least one on ebay now, and 3 or 4 on Yahoo Auctions. The one on the right is the pre-release poster and nobody has one for sale at the moment that I can find. I want the prerelease one, but I may settle for the normal one if one doesn't show up after a while.

I've only been looking since yesterday though. For all I know they could turn up on ebay often.

No luck on my end.  I'll take a look

Made my first bid using Buyee; one thing I really like so far is that they have a bid sniping tool that will auto-bid 5 minutes before the end of the auction (which is great, because I've missed out on some by waiting till the last minute and forgetting).  I'll post with updates after I see how it goes.

[Yukito]

I've used Yahoo Auctions quite a few times and in my experience now is not such a good time to search for items. I would wait until around after January 6 to see if more show up. I've always found that the number of posted auctions goes down quite a bit during the holidays, especially New Year's.

Also, you might want to search for the movie company's poster sets (e.g. Shochiku yakuza posters), as I think you'll get some Gamera or kaiju film posters you don't want, but it's more likely to be in there.

I've also run into quite a few auctioners who are pleased to sell separately if an inquiry is made. I've asked for information on finding things from different auctioners before and they can be pretty helpful, or even offer to put up something for auction that they didn't.

[Joseph Joestar]

Thanks for the heads-up. I lucked out in finding some odd stuff I was looking for, but they seem picked over for video games right now (also, I'm pissed because I won an auction for a hard to come by game and the dickweed pulled the item).

[Super Orbus]

Dec 30, 2013 18:19:40 GMT -5 Yukito said:

I've used Yahoo Auctions quite a few times and in my experience now is not such a good time to search for items. I would wait until around after January 6 to see if more show up. I've always found that the number of posted auctions goes down quite a bit during the holidays, especially New Year's.

Also, you might want to search for the movie company's poster sets (e.g. Shochiku yakuza posters), as I think you'll get some Gamera or kaiju film posters you don't want, but it's more likely to be in there.

I've also run into quite a few auctioners who are pleased to sell separately if an inquiry is made. I've asked for information on finding things from different auctioners before and they can be pretty helpful, or even offer to put up something for auction that they didn't.

Thanks for the tips. Unfortunately asking for help is a bit tough, because I can't read or speak Japanese. I'm not in a big hurry, so waiting till after the holidays is good advice though.

Not quite clear what you meant about poster sets. You mean like look for a full set of Daiei posters?

I'm hoping one's going to turn up on ebay if I'm patient, since that would be less expensive, and a lot easier for me (as a non-Japanese) to deal with.

[Yukito]

Well, if you come across somebody you want to communicate with, just fire me a PM or contact me on Twitter or something and I'll be happy to talk to them for you.

And by poster sets, I mean, you often don't see just a single poster up for sale. Sometimes it's in "Daiei Gamera posters" or "Daiei 1995 poster collection" or something like that. It's akin to how in order to find some really rare old games that not many people are searching for, it's often better to search for a collection.

[Joseph Joestar]

Dec 27, 2013 22:13:34 GMT -5 Super Orbus said:

Anybody have any experience doing it? Either straight up, or through a proxy service? Looking for tips.

Ok, as an update...

Just got my stuff from Buyee.  It took a little longer because of the holidays and I'll have to try and do a detailed breakdown of the costs, but tentatively it looks like it's cheaper and more convenient than Rinkya.

Shipping is relatively expensive, but no worse than Rinkya was.  Secondly, they have an option for extra protective packaging for a small fee, which I opted for because I bought some posters and other potentially fragile stuff.

My main complaint is that when you win an auction, it's set up to make an automatic authorization to your paypal account (or credit card - which I didn't use).  I'm not a fan of that, but I've been using their sister company for the last year and a half with no problems, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

As I mentioned earlier, the auto-snipe bid is awesome.  I snipe all the time on auctions and it's really nice to have that as a backup in case you can't get online, or sleep through your alarm or whatever.

[Super Orbus]

Cool, thanks for the input. I kind of put the poster thing on the backburner for the moment, but I'll probably get back to it eventually. I'd be interested in hearing how the shipping broke down for you.

[Joseph Joestar]

Jan 26, 2014 13:38:53 GMT -5 Super Orbus said:

Cool, thanks for the input. I kind of put the poster thing on the backburner for the moment, but I'll probably get back to it eventually. I'd be interested in hearing how the shipping broke down for you.

NP, I've been running a search for Gamera Posters along with my items so I'll let you know if it turns up, sound fair?

Shipping will be about the same between the two companies, they both send via EMS.  For a poster, assume you'll pay somewhere between 1600 Yen and 2300 Yen insured (which is about the minimum you'll pay, and what you'll pay about two or three small or light items - if you're buying a couple of books and a couple of games, you're looking at about 5000 to 7000 yen insured - books are a bitch).  For either, if you decide to consolidate shipping of multiple items, with the extra fees and stuff it ends up being about 10 percent less than shipping separately. 

The big difference is the fees.  Here are some of the results from my Rinkya Auctions:

RAF World:
Won bid amount 3000¥ ($38.96)
Commission $20.00
JP Seller's Fees $15.00
Paid $73.96

Gimmick!:
Won bid amount 17655¥ ($223.48)
Commission $33.00
JP Seller's Fees $15.00
Paid $271.48

You pay a minimum commission of $20, regardless of the price.  You pay $15 for "seller's fees" regardless.  So basically, $35 minimum per item.  If you're lucky and there's a coupon, you can occasionally eliminate some of the JP Seller Fees, but only if you buy more than one item from the same seller, on the same day (Lame.).  PLUS you have to pay a special charge for it (although only about 3 bucks per item).

Here's similarly-priced stuff I just got on Buyee:

Sweet Home Promo Stills:
<Item Bid (Unit Price x Quantity)>
3500 yen
<Buyee Service Fee>
500 yen
<Payment Fee>
200 yen
Total: 4200 yen (about $40)

Lickle:
<Item Bid (Unit Price x Quantity)>
12800 yen
<Buyee Service Fee>
1280 yen
<Payment Fee>
200 yen
Total: 14280 yen (about $140)

Although there's a difference in prices on the items, you can see that basically you get assraped at Rinkya.  If I adjusted Gimmick for Buyee's fees (Service Fee is min. 500 yen, or 10 percent of the sale price), you're looking at about a 30 dollar difference per item. 
Note - if you buy something cheap on Buyee, the service fee minimum is 500 yen anyway, so you'll probably spend more on that than some items. But it's still way cheaper than Rinkya.  Anyway, I just requested that Rinkya refund my deposit, because fuck them.

That actually brings me to the next thing, and it might be a dealbreaker.  I've mentioned it before, but Buyee basically requires you to allow automatic authorization on paypal or credit card.  I'm still kind of wary and going to keep an eye on this, but at the same time it cuts down on some legwork of having to authorize payments, and you don't need to do a deposit.  For Rinkya, you need to put down $10 for every $50 of your spending limit - ie, if you want to buy stuff up to $350, you put down $70.

Anyway, looking back, I feel like my head's turning into a lollipop with the word "sucker" written on it like in one of those old Bugs Bunny cartoons.  But you live and you learn, and obviously I don't have a lot of common sense to begin with. 

Sorry to keep blathering on about this but I hope this helps some.  Now's definitely the time to buy - when I first got hooked on this, the Yen to dollar exchange SUUUUUUCKED; it's really good now by comparison.

[Super Orbus]

For credit card at least, I know a lot of cards let you generate an "online account number" that's locked to the first person or business that charges with it. My Mastercard also lets you specify a spending limit for the number. So if I were buying from a shady website for example, I'd generate off a new credit card number that I'd use for that transaction. The number is then locked to that website once they've charged with it, so it can't be used by anybody else, and I put a spending limit of say 50 bucks or whatever on it, so they can't do too much damage with it.

Might be something to look into for situations like this.

I'm considering a trip to Japan in the spring anyway, so I may just look for this and a few other things when I'm there. Though finding things like old posters takes some luck, even when you speak the language.

[Joseph Joestar]

Jan 27, 2014 1:07:29 GMT -5 Super Orbus said:

I'm considering a trip to Japan in the spring anyway, so I may just look for this and a few other things when I'm there. Though finding things like old posters takes some luck, even when you speak the language.

Awesome.  At some point I'd like to take a trip there, but that'll have to wait until my wife finishes school.  I'm hoping I'll have improved my speaking by then.